FOR most 17-year-olds their main concern when they get behind the wheel is mastering the three point turn.

And on Valentine’s Day most teenage girls probably have their hearts set on romance, but Amy Chandler has her eyes on a different prize – trying to win her first banger race.

The teenager, from Blackbird Leys, Oxford, who still does not have a driving licence, is fine-tuning her red Metro for the race at Standlake Arena on Sunday, February 14.

She started racing cars at 15 and has already amassed 20 trophies.

Miss Chandler, a former Oxford School pupil, got the racing bug after years of watching her mechanic father Dave Jones race Minis.

In fact, she started racing at the wheel of his old red Mini Cooper.

And pursuing her love of cars, she is due to start a course in mechanics at Oxford & Cherwell Valley College next month.

As well as her Metro, she also has three Ford Mondeos and a MkII Ford Granada to wreck during this year’s season.

The race on February 14 will be a street banger race, where cars just nudge or spin other cars. Two weeks later she will take part in a full contact banger race.

She said: “I like driving, it’s a good way to have fun without going on the roads.

“It keeps me busy and off the streets. I am learning new things, meet new people and go to different places. I would probably just be doing nothing otherwise.

“My ambition is to be the first female champion banger driver.

“I don’t really have any fear, so nothing scares me to the point I don’t really like it.

“My friends think I’m crazy but they do support me. They think it’s cool that I can drive.”

Miss Chandler, of Whitethorn Way, denied girls were better drivers, despite beating dozens of drivers of the opposite sex last year.

She said: “It depends on whether you can drive, it’s doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl.

“I’m quite skilful, I drive a certain way and I know the track quite well now. I like sliding around corners. I’ve had a quite a few crashes.

Recalling one, she said: “I came round the top corner and lost control,. and went flat out into a metal wall with concrete behind it. I had whiplash for about a week. We had to cut up the car and scrap it.”